Notes from Underdog.

My Year of Flops: 80s Screenwriters in Excess (from AV Club)

Provocative new piece in AV Club as Nathan Rabin continues his march through a "year of flops" with a look at one-time wunderkind screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (and Shane Black, who, remarkably once donated money to a former 'friend' who bailed from their relationship out of jealousy and basically demanded a ransom to continue). But this is more about Eszterhas, and nobody embodied 80s/90s Hollywood excess and burnout more than he:

My Year Of Flops: Inside Hollywood Edition, Case File 109: An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn

In the Darwinian ecosystem of Hollywood, screenwriters occupy a position just below the bottom; if they're allowed on film sets at all, it's generally so they can serve coffee to production assistants. In the minds of executives, screenwriters are to be neither seen nor heard. Yet Eszterhas continuously made a public spectacle of himself, feuding with producers, stars, directors, and most famously, super-agent Mike Ovitz. In a notorious bit of show-business lore, the unflappable Ovitz reportedly responded to Eszterhas' threat to sign with another agency by saying, "You're not leaving this agency. If you do, my foot soldiers who go up and down Wilshire Boulevard each day will blow your brains out."

Screenwriters are replaced and re-written on an hourly basis. Yet Eszterhas had the brass cojones to insist that his words were sacrosanct. Like his hero, Paddy Chayefsky, Eszterhas angrily demanded that his precious, precious dialogue couldn't be altered or re-written. Eszterhas wasn't about to let Johnny Improv or Joey Script Polish change a lovingly crafted line like "Well, she got that magna cum laude pussy on her that done fried up your brain!" with something less soulful or authentic.

In his characteristically self-indulgent memoir, Hollywood Animal, Eszterhas posits himself as the conscience of screenwriterdom, a proud culture warrior who used the power he accrued writing about ice-pick-wielding lesbian serial killers and plucky prostitutes to single-handedly win a place at the table for long-suffering scribes.

How to pitch (from LA Times)

Great, useful advice from an exec at Turner, for anyone trying to sell an idea to a studio or TV network. Some of the tips here may sound fairly obvious, but you'd be surprised...

Turner Entertainment's Michael Wright tells how to pitch >>

If you've come with material appropriate to the network or studio you're pitching, and you have the talent to execute it (or have the right talent attached), you're ahead of the crowd. No performance art, special effects or b.s. should persuade an experienced buyer to choose something that is not, at its core, right for his or her audience.

That said, the first rule of successful pitching is to understand the buyer. We live in the era of the brand, when every network and studio has (or believes it has) a specific personality that is understood by its audience. You wouldn't pitch the same project to TNT (my own beloved drama network) that you'd pitch to my other beloved network, TBS (our "very funny" network). Yet I've had comedies pitched for TNT and epic dramas for TBS (granted, some of the epic dramas were unintentionally hilarious).

Similarly, you wouldn't want to take your dark, dystopian, toxic family tragedy to Disney any more than you'd pitch a zany comedy about nuns who enter a baking contest to the folks who produced "Saw." Successfully selling your project starts with knowing which studios and networks do what and why and targeting the appropriate home. Let them know you've done your research. It flatters the hell out of the buyer because they think you actually know their work. Or care enough to pretend. Either way, it's all good.

The second rule of pitching is to be brief and clear. Believe me, if you pitch longer than half an hour without being asked to elaborate, it's a pass. At some point, you should hear a form of "Tell me more" from the buyer. If you don't, and you're continuing on anyway, you are risking death by schedule (by going on so long, you've screwed up the exec's schedule and now he hates you).

RIP, Abby Man.

(I'm copying and linking to David Hudson's GC Daily post on the death of screenwriter Abby Mann:)

Abby Mann, the screenwriter who brought incisive characterization and a searing sense of justice to Judgment at Nuremberg and other social dramas, died on Tuesday in Beverly Hills. He was 80.... Writing in Commentary, Jason Epstein said the movie, directed by Stanley Kramer, was "astonishingly intelligent" and raised "some of the darkest questions of this dark age."

Mr Mann followed his Nuremberg script with more than four decades of serious dramas, many for movies made for television, a genre he helped pioneer. He won three Emmys for television movies. His scripts, often derived from real cases, delivered withering critiques of the criminal justice system, frequently examining the denial of the rights of the accused.

Douglas Martin, New York Times.

His Emmy-winning television movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973) was a socially-committed crime drama about a detective who suspects a black youth is being framed. It was based on a real case, but significantly Mann introduced a fictional character who would go on to his own series and become one of the most familiar television detectives of the 1970s - the bald-headed, lollipop-sucking lieutenant Theo Kojak.

The London Times.

See also: Wikipedia.

Rating the Oscar-Nominated Screenplays (for short attention spans)

Here are my slightly abbreviated thoughts on each of the 10 films nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, assuming I've seen the films in question (and in a couple of cases, read some of their scripts).  My grading system is rather tough, as I like to withhold 5 star ratings for a script that I'd consider among the all-time greats, such as a Network, Dr. Strangelove, Chinatown, Breaking Away, and so on. While there may be no Paddy Chayefskys here (and no one wants to be held up to that standard), there are some outstanding works in this group.

Adapted screenplay

"Atonement", Screenplay by Christopher Hampton: 

Hampton's an old pro and considering it's no easy feat to adapt Ian McEwan, and while I had the same problem with the film that I had with the otherwise excellent book - that the central plot device, a false accusation that leads to the ruination of a romance and a man's life, never engaged me, and in the film, I never fully bought how in love with each other the two protagonists were (In the film James McAvoy's wonderful performance brings that character more alive, whereas Keira Knightley is a bit flatter) -- I still found the finished work often moving. In both the book and the script (and in the film with Saoirse Ronan's memorable turn) the young girl at the center of the whole affair is sympathetically portrayed. Again, I think Hampton does solid work here and Atonement has several memorable set pieces - including the long tracking shot over a war-ravaged beach front that lead to McAvoy's demise. It's his role and his friendship with the girl that gives the film, and the book, its emotional weight, not as much the romance.  Script:  ***

"Away from Her", Written by Sarah Polley

Polley's script is about a good an adaption of an Alice Munro short story as possible, so movingly, achingly heartfelt and empathetic to characters a generation older than the writer. Clearly Polley is an old soul. The portrayal of a couple dealing with the early stages of Alzheimer's is never mawkish, never drips into Hallmark movie soft focus, even slips in humor -- all from the essence of each character (and all wonderfully Canadian) -- that the whole piece touches (and reading the script is moving, too) in unexpected ways.  Script: ****

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", Screenplay by Ronald Harwood

I'm sad to report I haven't yet seen this one, though I've read portions of the script (and heard a lovely interview with Harwood), so I can't officially judge it yet. Will update here soon. (Everything I've heard about it makes it sound pretty superb though, and Harwood's even more the old pro than Hampton.)

"No Country for Old Men", Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

Superb translation of McCarthy's suspenseful, tight-lipped novel, captures his West Texas feel, the short, sharp dialogue - already well suited for the big screen and adapted here extreme faithfully - and the hearts of darkness found in all his characters save the beleaguered sheriff. But while the adaptation is for the most part extremely faithful to the book, the Coens add doses of their trademark quirky humor (much needed) interspersed to relieve us just enough of all the incredible tension built from scene to scene. The book is even bleaker than the film; anyone adapting McCarthy's The Road would have to do likewise. While both the book and the film require a bit of disbelief-suspension in plotting, the script and the finished film give us two things above all else: one of the most suspenseful films in recent times and one of the most unforgettably terrifying villains in Anton Chigurh.    Script: **** 1/2

"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax), Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson

Extremely creative interpretation of Sinclair's "Oil!" uses it as a jumping off point but takes it in unexpected places with a more modern sensibility. It's clearly Anderson's most mature work, though it wobbles a bit (as I feel most of his scripts have done) as it veers to a climax and occasionally - again as his previous works have done - wallows in self-pretension (just as Eli wallows in the mud after being pushed into it). There was blood at the end, and in a way the confrontation between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview is the only way it could've ended, but their final battle came off as a bit laughable. But the picture itself still fascinates, and the script takes almost unimaginable risks in what is on the surface a fairly simple story. A battle between religion and capitalism, with both letting us down? A portrayal of a ruthless idealist? A family tragedy? It's all of the above, and even in it's more awkward moments the script is interesting. Anderson also, in the film's first twenty minutes, demonstrates how a script can show more with less telling, in the dialogue-free action it's a silent movie with sound; he cuts it down to the bone. Script ***  (Film: 4 stars)


Original screenplay

"Juno", Written by Diablo Cody

Undeniably witty script, with Cody coming up with lines that, as director Jason Reitman has marveled publicly, almost no one else could've come up with (like Juno's line about "how they're giving away babies like ipods in China" etc, which she apparently came up with almost instantaneously after Reitman asked her to think of a line about adoption in China). There are times when those lines from 16 year old Juno sound much more like something Cody probably said as an adult than would come from the mouth of a teenager, even the most precocious and hip. (Though of course any classic screwball comedy is full of rapid fire lines that no one in real life would ever come up with off the cuff.) I think it's this year's Little Miss Sunshine, in both good and negative ways, in that it's a charming comedy, with well-developed characters spread fairly, great lines, and some contrivances that you have to get past to full embrace it. It feels like the work of an extremely talented, precocious writer: it's an often superb piece of writing, that only occasionally (and not enough to bother me) feels like an early draft full of "little darlings" that no one had the courage to kill off because they were so taken with the script. But even if it rushes through the couple's (played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) ultimately separation a bit quick and pat, the ending unexpectedly moved me. It benefits over Knocked Up for having a female perspective, whereas Knocked Up tended to put women on pedestals and men underneath them. In short, I'm not sure it's the classic many have touted it as, but it's still a smart, unique vision with a lot of wit and heart.  Script: ***1/2   (Interesting take on Juno and female memes from Kendra here.)

"Lars and the Real Girl", Written by Nancy Oliver:  Still waiting to see this one, alas, will update this after I do. I'll only say that I'm quite sure it's much better than "Mannequin."

"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.), Written by Tony Gilroy

Of all the original scripts nominees, Gilroy's is the most assured, mature work, managing to be remarkably suspenseful while going much, much deeper. It fascinates on many levels, and is what a great script should be: a great read, separate even from the film it spawned. Gives an incredible role not only to Clooney's titular character but also to Tom Wilkinson's manic-depressive lawyer, who is much more lucid about ethics and humanity ultimately than any of his colleagues, who sold their souls long ago. A thriller, a tragedy, a character drama all in one. A near masterpiece (I only had issue, nitpickingly, with a few lines that felt written, but these were few and far between.) Script: **** 1/2

"Ratatouille", Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird

Only marginally a children's movie, really. It starts out that way but then shifts into something more for adults, which I find admirable. It's smart, often very funny both verbally and visually, with great characterizations. My only issue with it at all is that I found parts of the midsection flag a bit too much, with some repetition of action getting on the verge of wearisome before it picks itself back up again and heads into a rousing conclusion. Overall I think the plotting in Bird's The Incredibles is more consistent, but this is still a beautifully rendered story. And Remy (plus his voice Patton Oswalt) = the best movie rat since Templeton!  Script: *** 1/2

"The Savages" (Fox Searchlight), Written by Tamara Jenkins

I wrote more about this here after seeing it at Sundance, where I was quite taken with Jenkins' alternatively hilarious and painful script. It has two great parts for actors (and Laura Linney and Philip Hoffman play the siblings with relish) and as funny as it often is, it's also one of the better portrayals of a painful subject: how to care for ailing parents who have mentally already left us. Jenkins may work slow (her Slums of Beverly Hills was ten years earlier) but I'd rather have her batting average so far. Script: ****

I will say that it's wonderful to see so many women nominated here for once. It would be even better if we started seeing more women nominated in the Best Director category, but it feels like we have much longer to go there. At least Jenkins and Polley directed their own works.

Now that the strike is over... (part 1)

will some rich film financier please give us 5-10 million so we can finally shoot my WWII script? No experience necessary, some flexibility and a large bank account are pluses. Inquire within.

Highlights from Podcasts: Diving Bell scribe Ronald Harwood

Ronald Harwood, veteran screenwriter who wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly script, speaking with Creative Screenwriting Magazine senior editor Jeff Goldsmith [podcasts available on iTunes or here] about that film and The Piano:

On process of adaptation:

RH: My approach is to be true to the book, to be true to what I'm adapting. I can't bear those things where they say, We should make this more accessible, we should update it, we should make Hamlet a woman, I can't bear that and I'm not good at it. I try to decide what the book's about and be true to that. ... What I do is I make an index as you would for a non-fiction book, and underline on the page anything that I think is important, and put the page number down., make an index which is good as a reference but what it's very good at is learning the book. You absorb the book, it becomes part of you as if you're own. So you know the heart of it.

(Asked about The Piano specifically, and how it was to write a script in which there is so much silence, how it was to write silence on the page.)

RH: Oh, it was lovely, not having to write dialogue was wonderful. In our first meeting [Roman Polanski and I] met at his flat in Paris, I said to him, I'm not boasting when I tell you this, but I said, "Roman, we must preserve the point of view." Because it was all from the pianist's perspective. "We mustn't invent a friend or have a voice-over." And he said, "Are you crazy? Of course we mustn't invent a friend." He liked to pretend he'd already had the same idea before you suggested it. Anyway, so that's what we did. But I had terrible trouble beginning the film. He kept phoning me and asking how it was going, I kept lying and saying it was going frightfully well, terrific. I hadn't put a word on paper. But finally when he called me for the third time, I confessed, "Roman, I don't know how to begin the film." He said, "It's called The Pianist! Start with him playing the piano!" So that's what I did and it just went on from there.

Highlights from Podcasts, a Series: The Great Debaters

I'll be highlighting in this space some choice moments recently heard in film-related interviews, particularly useful to screenwriters and filmmakers.

On KCRW's The Treatment [podcasts]: Denzel Washington in a roundly entertaining interview with Elvis Mitchell about Washington's film The Great Debaters, and the process of working with the script:

DW: [I asked] how can I make it a better script. We went through a lot of changes. There was no Willie Lynch letter scene (for instance) at all. We rewrote that. Just, massaging it, massaging. It was a four year process. We brought in [veteran screenwriter] Horton Foote at one point. He really developed and refined the sharecropper-slash-sheriff character, and I liked that, and I wanted to use that, I kept it because it gave us a bit of a ticking clock. This guy was after him and he didn't know it. ...
EM: Building these things are like entertainment elements into a story that could be hard to deal with otherwise, it's tough material.
DW: I still thought it was about - wow, this what they overcame.
EM: So those elements are still there.
DW: Some of them. Even more. Some of the racist stuff? There was even more. I cut half of that out. Because I didn't want it to be "Oh and then this racist thing happens. And then they walk up the block and then that racist thing happens." I said to somebody once,"I've been called a 'nigger' more in movies than I've been called in my whole life. " I'm like, man! I wouldn't go out of the house if it was this bad. [Elvis laughs.] So I didn't want to just use that as a dramatic device. Oh we need some drama, get the evil racist in here. Even in the case of the first scene, where he runs into the pig farmers, it was about class. When the guy says, "I'll endorse this over to you," the farmer was like, "Huh?" He didn't know what he was talking about. He felt inferior so he's got to come back. So to me it was as much about class and culture as it was about race.

This interview was useful to me in examining the way to make a film based on real events in black history - as I grapple with some of the same issues on my own script - and finding the heart of a story.

Juno what, I think I chose the wrong career path.

By being a blogger-slash-screenwriter, I seem to have erred greatly...

So the first really cliché question is: “How did ‘Juno’ come about?”

DC: You know, there comes a time in every young woman’s life where she thinks to herself, ‘I’m going to write an original screenplay.’

Really?

DC: No. But, in my case, I was an unlikely candidate to be writing a movie. I’d never done it before; no formal screenwriting education; I was a blogger-slash-stripper. I was contacted by this dude out in Hollywood who said he enjoyed my blog and felt that I had a good comic sensibility, and he thought that I should try writing a screenplay. And, if I were to do so, he would represent me. So I wrote “Juno,” went out with the script, it was received very warmly. Then [director] Jason Reitman came along, Ellen Page came on and… The magic happened.

From a new Interview with Diablo Cody and Ellen Page of “Juno” in Lumino Magazine.

Writer Scabs? Who, what, why...

Matt Elzweig in the NY Press (via GreenCine Daily):

Those emails, and more than 75 others, clogged a gmail inbox shortly after 3:41 p.m.on Monday, when we posted the following job opportunity on Craigslist:

NETWORK TELEVISION COMEDY WRITERS NEEDED
 
Network television situation comedy seeks non-WGA humor writers to write scripts for weekly network series during the current strike.
Salary negotiable.

The purpose of the posting was simple: we wanted to meet the scabs, the men and women waiting—with naked and immoral ambition coursing through their veins—to replace the 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America currently on strike against the television and movie industry. That strike, which began on November 5 and may last months, was intended to cripple the networks and studios, and halt production on movies and television shows. The strike’s goal is to force Hollywood to reformulate the equation of residuals paid to writers.

Could the companies actually hire these desperate writers to fill the hundreds of vacant slots on sitcoms and dramas currently in production? Hard to say, given the adversarial climate surrounding the strike.

But it’s clear from the overwhelming response to our Craigslist ad that there’s no shortage of writers ready, willing and able to step into the breach left by striking WGA members.

The ad itself reeked of bogus intent, and that was intentional. What broadcast network would turn to Craiglist to discover fresh talent to write its slate of situation comedies? Even The CW has higher standards than that.

In posting an ad so obviously phony and so clearly designed to entice writers willing to cross a picket line, we wanted to measure the lengths to which ambition might alter the attitudes of otherwise well-meaning writers.

Read the rest here.

As tempted as I'd be to use this as an "opportunity" I'd never go through with it, not to sabotage my career in the future, not to go against what I see as an extremely just cause, not ever. But still, even if this ad is bogus, it's interesting to think about what would drive others to ignore such worries and cross the picket line.

Book: How Independent Screenplays Work

Me You and Memento and Fargo: How Independent Screenplays Work,  JJ Murphy's useful book on the varying structures of indie scripts, should be of particular interest to budding screenwriters as well to those critics with an interest in, as Variety would say, "scribes." The elongated title names three of the films focused on here - others include Gus van Sant's Elephant, Jim Jarmusch's first feature the deadpan Stranger Than Paradise and Linklater's Slacker (which seems de rigeur for any discourse on independent film over the past 20 years, but less commonly analyzed for its screenplay). 

If the book has a fault it's that Murphy, a Professor of Film at the University of Wisconsin, can get a bit too bogged down in rehashing point by point the plot for each film dissected, occasionally without enough analysis or context. Particularly in the first chapter's detailed examination of Stranger Than Paradise, the plot recap is especially trying  if you've seen the film. But the book does find its rhythm more in each subsequent chapter. One may ask, why rehash Strangers Than Paradise rather than some of the other truly innovative screenplays, say, Charlie Kaufman's Being John Malkovich (but is that an "independent film"?) - yet when you look a more elaborate film like Malkovich you can see that, as out there as it is, the script does follow a classical three act structure (the painful process of writing therein Kaufman would later deride, or at least chronicle, in Adaptation). 

The book could also use more analysis in some of the chapters, but detailing plot points are necessary to examine how Jarmusch (and the other directors in the other sections) varies so wildly from conventional hollywood screenwriting.

In a discussion of Hal Hartley's comedy Trust, trying to explain the structure of a Hal Hartley screenplay seems a bit like trying to explain a platypus - it's a freak of nature, one of a kind, any attempt to explain it will seem futile -- but Murphy makes a valiant effort.  What goes into a Harmony Korine script would seem outside any rational human being's mode of description, but again Murphy does well to break a challenging film down by the way the script works (and doesn't) - in that case the freakish comedy Gummo, in my opinion the most clearly divisive film looked at here - you either love it or hate it - along with Elephant.

At first blush the high school shooting drama Elephant might seem an odd choice, seemingly practically scriptless, and, as Murphy admits, "it's ultimately not character-driven," but, he points out, it actually has a 3-act structure, and while it starts slow it does build to the expected tense payoff in the last act.  The highly structural approach in Elephant can be off-putting, too, but Murphy's examination of Van Sant's storytelling actually made me want to go back and see the film, to appreciate it more.

Most interesting from a screenplay structural standpoint - in the most obvious way - is Christopher Nolan's Memento (from a short story by his brother Jonathan), and while that specific script may be the most analyzed previously of the batch featured here it's still worthwhile to revisit. Alongside that film and Elephant in a section labeled "Temporal Structures" (an introduction to each section would have been useful) is Tarantino's first feature - interestingly though not surprisingly, the majority of the scripts featured here are first films - Reservoir Dogs, which uses a flashback structure. We know even more clearly from QT's enthralling follow-up film, Pulp Fiction, how much he abhors "cinema's inherent linearity," Murphy quotes him as seeing his structure as following that of a novel, which go back and forth all the time, rather than call them flashbacks. Whatever you call it, Murphy argues that thescrambling of time gives the narrative greater complexity (and, take that Syd Field! who considers flashbacks "a dated technique.")

Other scripts featured in the book include Alison Anders' Gas Food Lodging, an interesting film that frankly could've benefited from more script focus - Murphy heads that chapter "Shifting Goals and Focus", which I'd argue was one of its problems, but, as the author points out, the film's strong female characterizations and Wim Wenders-ish storytelling make it more than worthwhile; the Coen Brothers' Fargo, which makes some interesting choices along the way (including not introducing the central protagonist until well into the story);  Todd Haynes' Safe, a fascinating film with a script that would be hard to teach to a screenwriting class; David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which one could write a whole book about but Murphy does well to explain the film's dream logic (in fact, I'd recommend this chapter to anyone who watches that film and comes out of it, as many do, utterly baffled); and lastly Miranda July's recent debut feature Me You and Everyone We Know, which Murphy uses as a way to look at ensemble approaches to narrative, which that film did about as well in its sweeter, more low-key way as many of Robert Altman's key films.

All told, the book is a most useful approach to writers and filmmakers (often the same person, it should be noted, commonly a major difference between Hollywood films and independents) who broke the mold, the Syd Field model of the standard script paradigm, to bring their unique voices and visions to the screen via the written word - in many cases more the latter than one might initially have imagined.

The Strike Looms, and Gloom Strikes?

As you no doubt know, there's a great deal of buzz about the possibility of a writer's strike
in Hollywood, as soon as the beginning of next month. Even more likely, if that's delayed, is a strike on a larger scale, next June.  As noted on the Guardian UK, and Variety (via IGN-->): "The WGA had been expected to join forces with the DGA [Directors Guild of America] and the SAG [Screen Actors Guild] in the summer, rather than on November 1, when its current contract with studios expires. The possible strike is over royalties from sales of movies over the Internet and on DVD, which are not covered in the current deal between the various guilds." Today's Variety adds that a "possible lockout is also being discussed."

More on the Defamer, which looks for a silver lining: "While the looming™ possibility of a strike is certainly upsetting, it's still possible to find a silver lining streaking the clouds that would blanket Hollywood during the nuclear winter of a work stoppage. Even a quick scan of other stories of today's trade papers indicates that the studios will be making every effort to keep audiences entertained during a prolonged walk-out, rushing into production the kind of high-quality, Michael Bay-produced, recycled film projects that might have tragically languished in development hell without this newfound sense of urgency."

More from Variety (via Jon Weisman), on the effects specifically on the TV season.

 

So what does this all mean for people with scripts circulating out there at various studios? Will they have a better chance of getting a project greenlit soon, out of desperation, as studios panic into rushing projects forward to make sure they're covered next year? Or if it doesn't happen now, and then a strike does happen, will they be screwed into screenwriter purgatory for a long while?

Only time will tell, and I have no idea how this affects my own project floating out there - probably not very much given it's only being looked at independently right now - but my gut feeling is that a) a strike will happen, and then b) won't last more than a month.

Cool Bits Story Generator

Stuck trying to concoct a plot for you next genre novel or cable TV movie? Try the Cool Bits Story Generator and steal a log line from their random plots.

>>It begins with someone who doesn't need anyone or anything (until they do) in a dark alley. This person meets a courtesan who carries a knife and together they encounter loyalty and a lonely scream in the darkness. The story winds up in a city with a long history and features blue cocktails. The overall narrative contains themes and imagery of blood.<<

>>In a shadowy forest, a man with charm encounters leaves blowing in the wind as the story begins. As the narrative unfolds, the protagonist meets someone who smiles - awkwardly - for the first time with antiquarian knowledge, and they wind up in Meiji Japan with men and women who are good friends with no sexual tension.<<

There! Print. Send. Sell. Live off profits for years.

 

[Thanks to Jay Garmon at TechRepublic for pointing to this one in his piece on Sci-Fi Channel movies - speaking of randomized plots spit out of a computer]

Future screenwriters, at 826 Valencia.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be co-teaching a 4 class workshop with my friend David Ewald, at 826 Valencia. The class: Screenwriting, you know, for kids. The students: middle schoolers. The goal: to help create future screenwriters and eventually save the world from more bad screenplays. Or at least, to have fun.  The final projects will be their short film scripts (or scenes for what could be a longer script), and to read/act out each other's work.

Wish us luck!

Knocked Up: the maculate conception

Knocked Up is, as many have already noted, a delight, a smart, sharp, sometimes vulgar comedy that aims to go somewhere real but keeps finding humor in the situations created by the characters' neuroses. It's also a treat for me, for the sheer number of actors in it who have enhanced previous Judd Apatow projects Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared. Along with the cast of The 40 Year Old Virgin (whose Paul Rudd appears here, as well as Seth Rogen, who has appeared in all his creations), Apatow's now built a sizable and talented repertory of character actors of all shapes, sizes and looks to work with. He's becoming like a modern-day Preston Sturges in doing comedy both timely and timeless, while working with a favorite group of actors. They clearly feed off each other's energy, developing their characters by improvising in places to enhance the script. Freaks and Geeks' Martin Starr is virtually unrecognizable under his ever-increasing beard here, as one of Rogen's stoner compadres; former Freak Jason Segel is nicely mellow and confident, while Undeclared's Jay Baruchel is already a master of facial expressions and comic timing. (And even Undeclared dad and folk singer Loudon Wainwright III appears here as an unreliable gynecologist.) They all work well together with Rogen, while Rudd's oft-clueless husband Pete fits in perfectly in this atmosphere of male bonding and aimlessness. (One of the film's best jokes - which is handled so straightfaced, and in the best Apatow tradition, with an underlying layer of anger that makes you forget it's a joke - involves Pete's "secret life.") Apatow and his casting people have such keen eyes for discoveries - particularly for nerdier males - and neurotic females (SNL's Kirsten Wiig is hilarious as a deadpan bitchy E! executive).

And what of the women? This is clearly a male's domain, but Apatow has a decided affection for the female characters, while thankfully not putting them on a pedestal. While Katherine Heigl's Alison is almost too good to be true in some ways, the script gives her moments where she's scared, anxious - understandable - and appropriately repulsed by the behavior of the men whose world she's unexpectedly become a part of. While one has to suspend disbelief a bit to buy the relationship, despite the script's best efforts to show how aware they are of how much of a mismatch they are, it's not a huge debit. Leslie Mann (Apatow's wife) is fantastic as Heigel's sister Debbie, Pete's wife, a wonderfully imperfect mix of insecurity and snobbery, horrified about the prospects of aging. (One of the film's many uncomfortable scenes has her arguing painfully with a bouncer at a nightclub, who, in a surprise moment, takes her aside and tells it like it is. It's a ferocious, awkward scene that is not entirely believable but has him speaking the truth of the superficiality of LA's - and modern society in general - youth-obsessed culture.)

Many critics have called the film "conservative" in its beliefs, in that she decides to keep the baby and in how it works them towards domesticity. The film in a way is about choice, though, both the protagonists' choice and (not to sound flippant) the choice a writer makes to tell a story. A film where the couple chooses to have an abortion could be entirely interesting, but would not be the same film - it would likely be a shorter one, perhaps, and probably not all that humorous, either (although there's room for humor in anything, and I suppose it could still be a story of two people who gradually come together).  People make choices and - for now at least - this country (or parts of it) allow for women to make that choice. In <i>this</i> story, the characters decide keep the baby and that is what it's about. This is The Situation that any comedy script needs; in this case, it's, How do we have this baby? Still, I can see how people can politicize this scenario, but really don't think this was Apatow's intention at all.

On the other hand, the quite brief sequence where Heigl's character has to decide about keeping it or not - where her mom tells her to get rid of it, and she worries about how it will effect her career (understandably, given she's become an on-air personality on the superficial E! network) - is almost rushed or glossed over. It's difficult to get a sense as to why she decides to keep it (again, not disputing her character's decision, just wanting to know more as to why) -- even though it may put her career in jeopardy and the father is not someone she has any confidence in at all.  It's almost as if Apatow didn't want to go There. And maybe he has a point. Because this film is less about the choice - which he takes as a given - than it is about the aftermath. And only one potential aftermath. The other one would be a different film. His two feature films have both been about men with Peter Pan syndrome, and are both an accurate depiction of the crises these men face when they actually attempt to grow out of that while trying to maintain that sense of childlike wonder. And the greater point is, the characters make these kinds of films, and all of them here are so well-drawn, real, human, funny, empathetic, that politics seems really far from here. That's not to forgive a few parts where credulity is a little strained, but to appreciate what this is and how it succeeds. (And is smart enough to stop before the baby arrives, because who wants to see that part of their life?)

As squirmy but sweet comedy goes, no one does it better right now than Apatow and his repertory.

Script Frenzy

I'm not sure why I signed up to do Script Frenzy in June, except that I'm a lunatic, since I'm still doing another set of revisions on The Script Project That Will Not End. I'd hoped to be done with that this week but that's looking unlikely. Nevertheless, I'm gonna try to crank out a draft of a new script in June, even if I have to do some makeup time later on in the month, and you should sign up for it too, so we can all suffer, whine and commiserate as one.

Script Frenzy >>

"Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants attempt the creatively daring feat of writing an original, full-length screenplay—or stage play—in a single month. Spurred by a wild deadline and buoyed by a community of countless other writers, Script Frenzy participants can't be bothered with self-doubt—or editing. They're too busy writing by the seat of their pants, typing out beautiful, flawed stories that no one else could have dreamt up."

Script's price can spell 'the end' (from LA Times)

Very interesting piece by Patrick Goldstein:

THIS is a tale of two scripts, one that sold for a ton of money, one that remains twisting in the wind. Both are beautifully written, but in Hollywood, while scripts are prized for great writing, they must also give a studio chief enough ammunition to comfortably answer the question: If I spend $100 million on this, will I be bankrolling a big hit, not a colossal failure?

One script, an adaptation of Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" co-written by "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker Peter Jackson, sold after an intense bidding war to DreamWorks, which will spend close to $70 million for the Jackson-directed film.

The other script, a 1938-era Hollywood thriller written by John Logan ("The Aviator") with Michael Mann attached to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio to star, made the rounds carrying a $120-million price tag. It has yet to sell, though one studio, New Line, remains interested, but only if the cost comes down considerably.

When both scripts turned up on my doorstep, I decided to give them a read in the hopes of answering the questions that have been floating around town the last few weeks: Why did "Lovely Bones" sell for so much money, even though it's a very adult drama about a 14-year-old girl who is brutally raped and murdered? And why is Mann's untitled thriller still unsold, even with a huge movie star in the package?

The reception to the two scripts offers an intriguing glimpse into the way studios view daunting material today, balancing the value of a film's artistic ambition against its box-office potential. This cautious approach is best summarized by Warner Bros. chief Alan Horn, whose studio eventually backed away from both films.

Full piece>>

Seth Rogen: Comic prodigy

A fine piece on actor/screenwriter Seth Rogen in Time:

The Education of a Comic Prodigy

That Rogen is starring in movies isn't the really weird part. The really weird part is that in August, Sony is putting out Superbad, a profanity-drenched movie about high school kids that Rogen wrote 12 years ago. When he was 13. "We were watching some movie, and we said, 'This sucks. We can write a better one right now.' And we went upstairs and started writing," says his writing partner, Evan Goldberg. The script has had considerable punching up since then, but there's still one joke in the film that they wrote that day. "Superbad for me was the funniest and tightest script I had ever read. Those guys are like baby geniuses," says Jonah Hill, who plays the high school senior based on Rogen in the movie, since the real Rogen, even after double-shaving, could no longer play the part he wrote for himself.

(Sniff) I remember when he was just a teen on Freaks and Geeks, and now look at him! The lovable freak. Knocked Up looks like another winner for Apatow and company, and Rogen's Superbad (see above) looks like the smartly raunchy teen comedy I wanted to write - had I been smart enough to write it in high school.

Muy Malle: Quotes for screenwriting

(Will post more here soon...)

"When you are working on a script, the story itself is not difficult. You say this would happen and then this, resulting perhaps in this. And the dialogue you make as true as you can."

----

"You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows."

--Louis Malle

Six of Malle's fine documentaries are out on DVD tomorrow, courtesy of Eclipse (which is courtesy of Criterion), by the way.

FADE OUT.

I'm almost at the point where I can write those words at the end of this screenplay and actually feel satisfied that it really is complete. I have two days to finish this screenplay draft and then send to the director next week, so if it's real quiet here for a little while longer you'll know why. This is The Script That Ate My Life, and it must be stopped before it terrorizes more people!

I'm not gonna say any more 'cause I don't want to jinx anything or ruin everything.

FADE OU...

Online Listening Tips for Screenwriters

I highly recommend screenwriters - and filmmakers - check out these podcasts:

- Creative Screenwriting magazine offers up new podcasts every week via iTunes, featuring Q&As with screenwriters with new films out. One of the newest interviews features Zodiac screenwriter James Vanderbilt chatting with CS senior editor Jeff Goldsmith and an audience about the process of writing that film. Vanderbilt's a most engaging subject when talking about the research, working with David Fincher and so on. (Interestingly, the same magazine features a less than glowing review of the film and script - a review which I think is much too hard on the finished product.) Some of the Q&As are better than others - Goldsmith's rushed interview with Iris Yamashita (Letters from Iwo Jima) isn't his finest hour and the odd interview with the director/writer of the Algerian WWII picture Days of Glory sounds like a talk with his translator instead, because all of the original French was snipped out of the podcast (makes it shorter though!). But he's enthusiastic and well versed on most of the subjects at hand and these talks are a really useful tool for any budding scribe. The interview with Children of Men co-writer Tim Sexton is particularly great, as is the ones with Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) and The Queen's Peter Morgan.

- Despite its name, The Treatment, which comes via KCRW in LA, isn't focused on screenwriting per se; but rather an interview show with one of my favorite film critics, Elvis Mitchell, chatting with various directors, writers and producers about making films and television (two writer-producers for Lost were recent guests). Mitchell's such an affable, literate host that I'll tune in no matter who the guest (though sometimes his questions are longer than their answers!) Some of the great recent shows include: Guillermo Del Toro, Anne Beatts (former SNL writer), George Miller (on how he went from Mad Max to Babe to Happy Feet, and how they're all linked more than you'd think), and Steven Soderbergh. Download 'em to your ipod and catch up now. 

WGA Announces Screenplay Nominees

The Writer's Guild of America just announced its nominees for Best Screenplay (from Variety):

WGA ANNOUNCES NOMINEES
The Writers Guild of America has tapped the screenplays for "Babel," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Queen," "Stranger Thank Fiction" and "United 93" for its original screenplay award; and "Borat," "The Departed," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Little Children" and "Thank You for Smoking" for the adapted award.

Winners will be announced Feb. 11 in simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. The WGA nominations, announced Thursday morning, were based on voting by the guild's 13,000 members. WGA winners have matched the Oscar winner in the original category seven times in the past 12 years.

 

Borat for best adapted screenplay? Struck me as odd. Here's the explanation: "The screenplay for Fox's "Borat" qualified in the adapted category since it was based on a character created by Sacha Baron Cohen, who's credited along with Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham and Dan Mazer for the screenplay and story."

"God, the smell."

I met an older gentleman in my travels last week - just started a conversation with him in my new quest to be better at initiating conversations with strangers, in honor of my grandfather, 99 years young, who I was visiting in Florida, and who has always been an expert in that arena.

This man I spoke to seemed to be of the right age, so I asked, "Did you by any chance serve in WWII?"  He said, "Of course I did - 4  years in fact, including 4 weeks after the war was over. Four long weeks."

This eventually lead to my confession that I had an ulterior motive of sorts in asking. I've been working on a WWII themed screenplay and am always interested to learn more from people who were actually there. Wherever there was. As it turned out this man had done his basic training at a base in Ohio in which there had been German prisoners of war. Later, while he was serving Over There, he met a German girl whose husband had been captured and made a POW. This man had, it turned out, been sent to the same camp in Ohio - so it was possible my new friend had even met her husband.

Even more interesting, and timely again, was how he also told me he'd seen a concentration camp near the end, which had bodies both living and dead. I said, "I can't imagine, can't imagine ever forgetting such a thing."  He just shook his head, lost in  that time again, not saying anything for a few moments. Then he said, "What I'll never forget is the smell. God, the smell. I still remember how it smells, even now."

I didn't ask him to elaborate further.

Despite the man's age and his lack of hearing, he surprised me by asking if he could follow me and my script's progress on the internet, so I gave him my name and e-mail address and asked him  to wish me well.

Silver City

It's meant as no insult to John Sayles to say his films usually play better on television - with their multiple characters and interlocking stories, mysteries that probe at both the pains of the human heart and the greater issues facing our society, and talky, sometimes meandering scenes - his films are a natural for the smaller screen, American telenovelas. Silver City, Sayles' most recent film - which I finally caught on cable this week - is a perfect example. It reminds of Sayles' earlier, superior Lone Star (with some ingredients from Chinatown and Cutter's Way thrown in). It's easy to see why it wasn't a hit with audiences or critics - it continues the recent trend of Sayles films becoming overly long, favoring the didactic over dramatic, offers a thinly veiled characterization of President Bush in the guise of Chris Cooper's straight-shooting, unsharp gubernatorial candidate (though Kris kristofferson's range-roving father character won't remind many of Bush, Sr.), certainly not unforgivable, but besides giving more ammunition to conservative critics who rail against the "liberal agenda" in films (hardly an unassailable case), it adds to the overall feeling that this is a film about A Point, rather than trying to tell a story with any political agenda flowing natural from that story. 

That said, with the excellent cast expected of a Sayles film and the  writer-director's knack for deft characterization and acute ear for dialogue, the film offers many good scenes and interesting ideas about what ails the American political system. 

Danny Huston, fast becoming one of the most underrated of film actors (See: Constant Gardener and The Proposition [which I reviewed here] for more evidence) makes for a strong, complex and likable lead - his journalist investigates a murder that may have something to do with Cooper's candidate, much like Cooper's sheriff in Lone Star poked his nose around a multi-layered mystery, much like Chinatown's Jake Gittes pokes his nose in a mystery and gets in over his head (and gets that nose sliced, as well).   

It's not that i disagree with Sayles points, these are issues politically close to my heart but it reminds me of UCLA screenwriting professor Richard Walters' anecdote about the student who proudly said they wanted to write a screenplay about pollution. "Well, what's the story?" he asked. "I don't know yet," they answered, "just that it should be a film against pollution."   

Sayles writes his scripts like novels and many times this has served him well - in Matewan, Lone Star, and Eight Men Out, among others. Silver City's more like an overlong novel, full of interesting (and a few too many) tangents - with a love story with Darryl Hannah's wayward sister-of-the-candidate a particular sticking point, sharp diaolgue, preachy parts and an overreaching aim that becomes tiresome.

Still, there is much to appreciate in Silver City, and a good amount of it centers around Huston's smilng, probing performance. When he's on screen, the film holds your attention. If it had only managed to narrow its focus to his character and the investigation he obsesses over, with the political corruption angle more naturally woven into the script (and taking a good 40 minutes of fat out with it), this would have been a stronger film. But as it is, during this election season, and after months of headlines about political corruption and ethical transgressions, the film is certainly timely and deserves a watch.

From the screenplay:

DANNY (Danny Huston)
I always pictured you in some smoky hole in the wall, hunched over your computer, spewing your bile at the military-industrial complex.

MITCH PAINE (Tim Roth)
Well, it is a hole in the wall--but I'm surrounded by a bunch of anti-tobacco Fascists.

DANNY
I think they call them "pro-oxygen" these days.

Restarting and Jumpstarting the Script

It was inevitable.

The last draft I turned into the director for comments is clearly not ready for prime time but I held out some hope that it would be close. It is closer, which is good, but still in need of a kick start, or a restart, or a jump start. Or all three.  However, after a few moments of sobbing and babbling to myself, I got a better handle on his comments, what he was saying, and then we had some good exchanges about what would improve things versus what worked. Here's what I've already learned are good things to do when a script is close but still needing some structural improvements:

• First, re-do the outline, from scratch. That doesn't mean rewriting everything - there can be some cutting and pasting and so on, but really do as much from scratch as you can do, rethinking every step, every scene and sequence along the way. But not by staring at the script in Final Draft or whatever - just look at it in simple outline form. The steps, the building blocks, that will have the thing making sense or not making sense.
• Second, at least in my case, go back to previous drafts - based on the director's suggestion, there were actually some things I'd done right or that were at least good ideas worth revisiting. I may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in some instances.  Find these sequences or moments and cut and paste them elsewhere.
• Then look at that outline again and see where these fit in the chronology of the story.
• As painful as it is, read through the last draft again and see everything that you didn't see before - what's wrong with it, what's still right with it.
• I also find putting the director's comments (and my own) in the comment field in word or the notes field in Final Draft is helpful, too, so there are places to reference and remind.

Then crack those knuckles and get a-writin'. Take breaks, get perspective, read scenes outloud with other people. Repeat until finished or dead, whichever comes first.

Revision mode.

Final Draft software has an option where you can turn on "revision mode" to track various drafts of your script. You set a different color for each draft - i.e., blue for second draft, red for third, etc. - and can also set it to denote any changes from previous draft with an asterisk at the edge of each line. *

My current file had more colors than a box of crayons and more stars than are in the sky, until I finally turned the damned thing off. This revision-in-progress - the one where I sent the director a draft of about 105 pages and he sent it back with a cut here or there, down to, oh, 65 pages - is now back up to 90 pages and getting close to the end. I just have to figure that part out - how it ends - and then, given this has involved a lot of back and forth with the director and clarification and brainstorming - this should by all intents and purposes be the one closest to "ready." But I'll believe that when I see it, and I won't see it until the end is written.  Which it will be, by this weekend. At which point, this place will get busy again.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

"Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished. Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there's a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap. I can't be punished any more." - Endgame

How is that scriptwriting can defy the laws of science? Nearly finished with this "final" draft of a script in which the finish line seems to get farther away the closer I get to the end. And yet onward I trudge, plowing through complications and convolutions, adding layers and removing others. I see the light now. This weekend it will be done.

And then I'll have more to say about it. Or anything else.

Stolen Flowers?

The story of what may have happened to screenwriter Reed Martin, who is suing Broken Flowers director Jim Jarmusch and co. for copyright infringement, is one that makes me writhe in empathetic pain. This is my worst nightmare: you write an original screenplay, it gets passed around, you've done everything you're supposed to as far as registering and copyrighting the script, it gets passed around more, then an interested party abruptly drops their interest in it, nothing happens, and then someone else makes a movie that feels an awful lot like your script.

Director Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers" came out last summer and made many lists of the year's best movies. A Grand Prix winner at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, the offbeat comedy stars Bill Murray as an aging Don Juan who revisits a string of former girlfriends, trying to puzzle out why his life seems so unfulfilled. But when Reed Martin saw "Broken Flowers," he wasn't laughing or applauding. Martin, a freelance journalist and adjunct professor of film marketing at New York University, left the theater with a knot in his stomach.

While there's two sides to every story, and I also know that, as painful as they can be to a writer to acknowledge, coincidences do happen and there's not much they can do about them - this particular case, does sound a little fishy. If they were in any way inspired by Martin's script, the least they could have done was give him some sort of shared credit on the film.

On the other hand, as much as I enjoyed Broken Flowers in many ways, my other initial reaction upon hearing this story was: What script?  The film was so minimalist and quiet and not exactly plot driven that it's easy to wonder aloud whether there was even a screenplay at all.  Of course there was, though - even deadpan minimalism needs to be scripted for film, and there was structure here, etc.

I hope they review the case thoroughly and work out something fair should it be determined that copyright infringement did take place.

Plotbot Collaborative Screenwriting

I was invited to test a new web site designed for screenwriters called Plotbot, which is all about "writing together." I was a little skeptical of something created to force we hermits (a.k.a. screenwriters) out of our caves and into collaboration, as well as concerned about something that might allow the general public to hack into that brilliant script project one is working on in top secret to avoid the plagiarizing hoards  of Hollywood, but it's an intriguing program created with good intentions (by film school graduates). As the site is in beta mode, I hope my comments here will be kind and fair if also honest enough to help this work in progress.

Using AJAX, Plotbot allows writers to use their web browser to write a screenplay, and then invite others (one other, several, or as many as you want) to work on it with them.

The site design is generally very friendly with a sense of humor throughout (with the titular bot lurking over all), though it's a bit hard to do what many writers will want to do, which is start writing. Jumping right in to writing a script is rarely the best thing to do, but Plotbot does provide an Outline option, which is a better place to start.

The site needs to better differentiate between the tutorial aspects and the actual action elements. A big button that says, "Project" or something instead of using hyperlinks within a larger bit of text, would be better. I realize the site is in Beta mode so some of the bugs and kinks will be worked out (right now, clicking on the link for "Your Homepage", even while logged in, takes me to a more generic home page, whereas clicking on the caption at the upper right with my login name in it takes me to what really is my home page - for example).

So I created a project, called The Time Travel Project, for lack of a better title - you see, uh, it's a time travel script that I hope to write after I'm done with this damned WWII project - and made it "private" for now, as I don't have any potential writing partners at the moment, am paranoid about theft, and am a hermit living in a cave. But if I want to make it public, Plotbot makes it easy to change that. It's also easy to invite writers to join, whether they're a member yet or not.

How about the writing software itself? It won't replace Final Draft or Movie Magic any time soon. It's fairly easy to use (and it's free) so for people who don't yet have those other programs and can't afford it, this isn't a bad way to go. It is a bit cumbersome, however. You type in the scene heading, easy enough. Then action. Then you have to hit "submit." Each time it's a new element. Dialogue brings up two boxes, one for the character name (though it doesn't tell you the box is for character name, it assumes you know. I did know, but will everyone?) and then the dialogue. Then submit. Wait a few seconds for it to load, and so on. It's easy, but not what I'd call super fast. What would be cool is if it had a way to upload a final draft (for example) file and then use PlotBot to collaborate and edit it with others there.

[PB doesn't yet appear to have any means of exporting (or importing) scripts, which would be a serious flaw because almost everyone is going to want to then transport their finished project to another program where they can then print and tweak and send. However, they note in their dev blog that this is in the works, so hold tight.] [a bit of an update/correction: you can actually download an XML or RTF version of your script to PlotBot; you just have to look for the "download" link next to the script title on the screenplay page. However, I'd still advise a second, more obvious location for this.]

Of couse, Final Draft has something called "CollaboWriter" which allows writers using Final Draft to chat with each other while editing the script (one person is designated the editor at a time). It takes a little while to completely understand, too, but is pretty sophisticated. It also requires that people are all using Final Draft of course, which is not a cheap program. (I'm just using FD as an example because I happen to have it.) So again, PlotBot can be a cool tool for bringing people together who are using different software - but why would they want to type in a script twice, using PlotBot and another software? This is where the import tool could come in handy.

If you want to print, it appears you have to print directly from the web browser using the browser's print command, but perhaps this will be fixed in the future as well. Also, PlotBot works best in Firefox.

I plan to check out the collaborative aspects of PlotBot in more detail soon, once I convince another person to try it with me. If you try this and have feedback on it, post a comment here to let me/us know.

Again, with the program in Beta mode, and having great potential, I would like to keep my eye on PlotBot to see how they tweak it in the future - and urge other scriptwriters to do so, too.

The Revision Mix

I'm now in revision mode for the script, having been given about 3-4 weeks to finish it. After much back and forthing with the director about plot changes and additional character development, I feel like we're pretty close to on the same page and the improvements will make the script that much better.  Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, it makes it a little easier, more enjoyable, to do some research for some of these changes. This includes a few films the director suggested I watch, or re-watch, to get a sense of what he wants in various specific instances.

Including:
The Hill: Sidney Lumet's taut drama set inside a desert prison camp for wayward British soldiers, starring Sean Connery - and, as I mention in a previous post, why isn't this one out on DVD?
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold: For, you know, spy stuff.
Cabin in the Cotton: My own suggestion; it was on TMC and had some good moments around poor Southern sharecroppers, even if it is a melodrama. But it's a pre-code melodrama,with Bette Davis, which makes it better!
The Good War: An obscure POW camp drama with Roy Scheider; set inside an American soil camp for Italian prisoners, during WWII. It does some things well, and some things poorly. Good to see for both reasons.

Sisyphusean Screenwriting

My sisyphus-like task of writing this screenplay continues its endless loop as I'm now in full-on "final" (or should that have an asterisk?) revision mode. Much closer this time but still have a few major changes to make and some revisions to main characters - fleshing out, weeding out the "fat," etc.  In two to three weeks, I hope to be done, and in those closest way yet to what the director is looking for.

At that point, I hope things can move forward and I can talk about this in more detail. But for now, don't want to say boo until it feels more "there."  Which is why it's a little quieter here at the moment...

Ironically, speaking of Sisyphus, one film the director suggested I re-watch (it's been a few years) is Sidney Lumet's The Hill with Sean Connery (in which the men in the prison camp are ordered to march up and down a man-made hill in the camp).  The problem is it's not on DVD, and is OOP on VHS (and I don't even have a VCR anymore!) - so I have to a) rent it from one of the few places here that has a copy, and then b) go to my sister's to use her VCR to watch it. But it will probably be worth it, to get a better sense of how those characters can influence mine.

Interview with Aeon Flux screenwriters.

I had an enjoyable chat with Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, the screenwriters of the Aeon Flux film, in an interview for GreenCine. While the film didn't get the best reviews, and there was definitely something missing from the finished product as far as character development goes, and some clunkiness, you can tell there was more to it than met the eyes. Talking to them cleared up some things, and also shed some light on the tough business of screenwriting.

"Best" Screenplays?

[Thanks to David for pointing this out:]
The 101 Greatest Screenplays, as selected by the Writers Guild of America.

As with any list, it's surely devised as much to provoke and debate as it is to stand as the be-all and end-all, a way to drive traffic to the WGA and so on. Still, there's much to embrace here, and much to question.

And what defines a screenplay really anyway - is it the finished, shooting script, including all the actor's contributions, improvisation, the director's last minute changes and so on?

The most glaring problem with the WGA's list is how Ameri-centric it is. In fact, when I first looked at it, I thought it was like one of those AFI lists of Best American ____s. But a few international films on the list made me realize it wasn't officially limited to the US. Can there be no great scripts from other countries? Do people at the WGA not watch films or read scripts from beyond our borders? Perhaps screenplays are not a requirement and most international films are put together with a loose blueprint, some improvisation and tape and staples.

That said, I was glad to see some of my own favorites on the list, especially some recent choices, like Groundhog Day and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

And I always think it's easier to criticize lists like these without suggesting specific omissions, so which would you remove, and what you would replace it with?

I'll think on it, too.

Update: (As I wrote on the Daily's comments for this subject:)

No Bergman, either, which seems a pretty glaring omission.

No Peter Weir. No Breaking Away by Steve Tesich, one